THE MARTIN LUTHER KING MONUMENT STANDS 30 FEET TALL ON A 4 ACRE SITE NEAR THE NATIONAL MALL IN WASHINGTON, D.C.
Art and Politics in Black America
The Active Screen Blog focuses on the relationship between Art and Politics in Black America and on the evolving point of view of Black Artists on this issue. The blog will consider this issue from both the historical and the contemporary perspective. The essays in this blog will concede unapologetically, that Art and Politics in Black America are inextricably intertwined. We will look at the evolution of this relationship from the earliest history of Blacks in America to the present.
The essays in this section will be devoted to discussions of the works produced by Black Artists in America up to and during the first three decades of the twentieth century. We will recognize the great progress that has been made by this art, in elevating the view of the culture in Black America and look proudly at the great monuments to this progress that have been produced by and about black artists.
PHILLIS WHEATLEY
BORN IN WEST AFRICA AND SOLD AS A SLAVE FROM THE SHIP PHILLIS IN COLONIAL BOSTON SHE WAS A LITERARY PRODIGY WHOSE 1773 VOLUME “POEMS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL” WAS THE FIRST BOOK PUBLISHED BY AN AFRICAN WRITER IN AMERICA.
Frederick Douglass
Born into slavery in 1818. Prolific Writer, Orator, Powerful leader of the abolition movement.
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
Col Robert Shaw and the men of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment .
The 54th Massachusetts Regiment was organized through the efforts of Frederick Douglas and Governor John Albion Andrew of Massachusetts. They fought bravely and many of the men died heroically along with Lt. Colonel Shaw at the Second Battle of Fort Wagner near Charleston S.C. on July 18th, 1863. This regiment and their battles proved beyond a doubt to both the Union and the Confederate armies that Black troops could and would fight cohesively and effectively in military units for their own freedom.
Although the French held expositions once every eleven years The “Exposition Universelle of 1889” held in Paris, France in that year which commemorated the 100 year anniversary of the start of the French Revolution is among the more famous of these world fairs. The symbol of the 1889 Fair, the newly constructed Eiffel Tower, stood at the entrance. The exposition is also famous for the ‘Colonial Exposition’ in the fair that year in which exhibitions from the French colonial empire were displayed in France for the first time. Among these exhibitions were native scenes from Africa in which Black Africans were depicted in cages and enclosures not unlike an exhibition in a zoo and in which a Senegalese village including live human beings as part of the exhibit was on display. In 1893 journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnet and activist Frederick Douglass publicly expressed their disapproval of the display of the African villages. When the next Universal Exposition in France was being organized for the year 1900 Black Americans in the United States lobbied the American government for the opportunity to submit an exhibition to represent Blacks in America. Forty-two nations were expected to submit exhibitions showing the progress of human evolution in the various countries.
In October 1899 Black journalist and activist, T. Thomas Fortune wrote:
“I am heartily in favor of the effort to secure through the United States Commission a proper Afro-American Exhibit. Under all the circumstances we are entitled to such an exhibit, as it would not only give Europeans some idea of the progress we have made since emancipation but serve to correct many false impressions concerning us which it is injurious to the United States should be entertained by foreigners.”
The lobbying effort was successful. W.E.B. Dubois was chosen to to curate the exhibit to show the progress of the American Negro. Dubois chose photography as the art form to intervene the view that had been presented at the 1989 Exposition by providing a visual record of the Black experience in America. The exhibition presented by Dubois countered the prevailing view of African Americans by showing over 300 photographs of splendidly attired African Americans poised and posed quite comfortably in the most elegant surroundings. Dubois set out to produce “an honest, straightforward exhibit of a small nation of people, picturing life and development without apology or gloss, and above all made by themselves.” The exhibition helped to present an entirely different view of Africans in America. The power of photography as an art form and as a political tool had been made evident in earlier decades by Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass. Dubois used it masterfully in this instance and to great effect. Historian Shawn Michell Smith wrote:
Unlike the exoticized displays of the African villages that reinforced white Europeans estimations of their own “civilized” superiority in relation to “Negro savages,” the American Negro exhibit of the Paris Exposition represented African Americans as thoroughly modern members of the Western world. The exhibit was considered one of the most impressive in the Palace of Social Economy and was honored with an exposition grand prize. No mention of this was made in the american press of the time.
Thus began the first decade of the twentieth century for Black Americans in Paris, France. Largely as a result of the impact of the Dubois exhibition at the Universal Exposition of 1900 Paris became, over the next two decades, a magnet for talented African Americans seeking a better place and the opportunity to study and produce art under more positive circumstances than could be found in the United States.
Meta Warrick Fuller – “EMANCIPATION”
Meta Warrick Fuller’s “EMANCIPATION” , 1913 to commemorate the 50th university of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Meta Warrick Fuller moved to Europe in 1899 to study sculpture at The Academie Colarossi and L’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. While there she met the sculptor Auguste Rodin who encouraged her to continue her work in sculpture. She later produced major afro-centric sculptures showcasing the strength, dignity, and heroism of African Americans in spite of the difficulty of their circumstances. In in 1910 Meta Warrick produced her signature piece “Ethiopia Awakening”. Her representation of a pre-slavery Black African figure reminded African Americans that their history did not begin with the European slave trade. In 1913 Meta Warrick Fuller’s sculptural masterpiece “Emancipation” celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Black Americans along with Black Africans from the European colonial empire contributed significantly to the victory in World War I during the second decade of the century. Increased labor requirements in the northern United States driven by the ramp up in factory production to fill the need for war materials in Europe and by the vacuum in the labor force created by restrictions in immigration and the exit of young men as soldiers to fight in the war abroad all led to a pronounced increase in migration of Black People from the southern United States. These conditions set the stage for the prosperity of the ‘Roaring Twenties’, the ‘Harlem Renaissance’, and the ‘New Negro Movement’ in the third decade of the twentieth century.
The feedback between Harlem and Paris was of fundamental importance to development of Art and Politics in Black America during the period of the third decade. Black artists working during the Harlem Renaissance and the New Negro Movement were producing exciting work in literature, painting, sculpture, and music that had a substantial impact on the image of Men and Women of the African diaspora in the United States and in Europe. Black American Art of this period including literature and music, targeted a multiracial audience. American financial interests particularly in the northern United States were slowly starting to see the Black American community as a rising consumer market.
Works of art and the political movements that they have inspired and grown from have created an environment that has brought about essential collaborations among peoples of disparate national, cultural, and racial groups throughout Europe and the United States. The respect for the talent that created the art created an avenue for dialogue that allowed the development of collaborations that could very effectively achieve political objectives.
Note: The description of and quotes relating to the ‘Paris Exposition of 1900’ in this essay are based on work taken from: “TOWARDS A NEW IDENTITY: READING THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE NEW NEGRO” (A Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at George Mason University) by Deborah Willis
Images: 1. Sculpture – The Martin Luther King Memorial/by sculpter Lei Yixin/Independence Avenue S.W. Washington, D.C. Photographed on location by Hank Thomas, Sr.
2. The Phillis Wheatley Memorial/by Sculpter: Meredith Bergmann located on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Mass. Photographed on location by Hank Thomas, Sr.
3. The Frederick Douglas Statue/by StudioEIS located at the New York Historical Society West 77th Street, New York, N.Y. Photographed on location by Hank Thomas, Sr.
4. “The Civil War Memorial to Lt. Colonel Robert Shaw and the men of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment”/by Augustus Saint-Gaudens 1883-1900 located on the Boston Common, Boston, Massachusetts. Photographed on location by Hank Thomas, Sr.
5. “Emancipation”/ by Meta Warrick-Fuller Sculpture located at the National Center of Afro American Artists in Boston, Mass.
Image edited by Hank Thomas, Sr.
